Could this be the last day of school in the West Bank’s fated Khan al-Ahmar?

After years of resisting Israeli demolition orders, a tiny village seen as vital to Palestine’s hopes of statehood faces destruction. But at the local school, it is still very much business as usual

Palestinian students at the school of Khan Al Ahmar (Flash90)

Peter Beaumont writes in The Guardian, “On Monday morning, in the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar, a few miles outside Jerusalem, the latest deadline for the community’s survival will expire. The most recent ultimatum was delivered to residents last Sunday by an Israeli government that has long pursued them through the courts. The villagers were told that they have until 1 October to demolish their homes and leave, following the rejection of a last-ditch appeal in Israel’s supreme court.

First established in the early 1950s by members of a semi-nomadic tribe that the UN says was displaced from the Negev desert, Khan al-Ahmar was not recognised by Israel as a residential area following its occupation of the West Bank during the 1967 war. Since 2009, residents have been fighting demolition orders.

Home to almost 180 people, Khan al-Ahmar – located in the occupied Palestinian territories – has long been a symbol of the plight of the Bedouin community, both in the occupied territories and Israel. The village has also become an embodiment of the prospects for a two-state settlement, with EU governments including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain recently appealing to Israel once again not to demolish the village, warning of “the prospects of the two-state solution”.” (More…)